The Rounding Influence of Storytelling

Insight is a story. It goes beyond an agreed upon fact and uncovers paradox.

There really isn’t any formula for insight because it depends on the ability to see beyond the data and consider context.

For 72 years, researchers at Harvard have been pursuing insight, following 268 men who entered college in the late 1930s through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. The archive is one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies in history. Its contents, as much literature as science, offer profound insight into the human condition—and into the brilliant, complex mind of the study’s longtime director, George Vaillant.

An article from last June’s Atlantic entitled “What Makes us Happy” focused on this study.

Amidst the data collected, the enduring lessons of the men studied were paradoxical and the scientific output needed, “the rounding influence of story-telling."

Insight is a story. How something is told affects its meaning. What to tell?

The Mendacity of Measurability

Albert Einstein once observed, "Not everything that matters can be measured and not everything that can be measured matters.” This is a tricky aphorism to comprehend because on the surface it would seem to be a celebration of intuition over empiricism.

That observation would deny history however because the good physicist demanded his “General Relativity” be corroborated by a total eclipse before it could be Nobel-worthy.

The insight is useful though if we consider that it offers clarity around the potential for equivocation when we automatically assume quantification as thought. Ideation can be compromised when we seek the right answer in the face of complexity rather than being comfortable accepting complexity itself. A prior formula can mistake the nature of variables and deliver an outcome that fails to recognize the functional relationship of those variables.

The author Mark Slouka exposes the fallacy of quantification further in his essay “Dehumanized: When Math and Science Rule the School” when he discusses the current trend in scholastics towards standardized testing. He paraphrases David Brooks on the importance of data capture skills and education;

“all we need to do is make a modest in- vestment in ‘delayed gratification skills.’ Young people who can delay gratification can master the sort of self-control that leads to success; they can sit through sometimes boring classes and perform rote tasks. As a result, they tend to get higher SAT scores, gain acceptance to better colleges, and have, on average, better adult outcomes.”

But Mr. Slouka exposes the fallacy of this thinking by observing,

“There’s something almost sublime about this level of foolishness. By giving his argument a measured, mathematical air (the students only achieve better adult out- comes ‘on average’), Brooks hopes that we will overlook both the fact that his constant (success) is a variable and that his terms are ‘way unequal’, as the kids might say. One is reminded of the scene in the movie ‘Proof’ in which the mathematician played by Anthony Hopkins, sliding into madness, begins a proof with ‘Let X equal the cold.’ Let higher SAT scores equal better adult outcomes.”

Foolish arguments can seem logical as long as they are internally consistent but what reasoned truth demands is a credible premise. We live in a world swamped by data. We engage the fallacy of numbers but fail to recognize the premise behind the numbers we believe author reality. In the face of the data over-load there is an opportunity to embrace good old critical thinking. We have an opportunity to sharpen our thinking by challenging the logic of agreed upon premises. And we are living in a very complex time when logic is necessary but critically assessing the premise driving that logic is imperative.

When we are faced with a challenge that chases a specific outcome are we allowing our desire for success to impact our premise in a way where we embrace the appearance of logic as an honest attempt to reconcile complexity? Or are we assessing our options in a way that better understands complexity? Are we looking for what seems to be the right answer or do we consider what is real, albeit messy?

The danger we face is allowing our comfort with logic to leave us vulnerable to unquestioned premises because to question an agreed upon premise may seem inefficient (or, Heaven forbid make us look simple). But by giving an argument a measured, mathematical air we overlook the reasoned truth that the constant we all presume is a necessary variable may not be equal to what is real. Sometimes to avoid the formulaic answer one has to become comfortable with the complexity of the question.

Of accountability and car-jacking

The "man" in Cormac McCarthy's novel "The Road" soothes his son's bad dreams in the midst of a post-apocalyptic living nightmare by telling him,

"When your dreams are of some world that never was or of some world that never will be and you are happy again then you will have given up. Do you understand? And you can't give up. I won't let you."

This week Detroit parents demanded that public school teachers and officials meet jail time and civil law-suits for their failure to teach basic math. Their outrage however seems ironic because it begs the question of accountability. These parents, unlike the man in the road, seemed to assume a dream-world where a passive approach to their children's educational possibilities is sufficient. Did they think that learning is a fast-food transaction where little money and less time can be spent to fill immediate needs? Did they think they could just send their hungry child's mind to seek processed gratification trading sustainable nutrition for salty goodness? Or did they try to satisfy the hunger for learning with some home-cooked lessons? If these parents are looking for culpability (and my personal understanding of the DPS would seem to indicate a high probability assigned to teachers and administrators) they need to consider themselves co-conspirators to these crimes.

I say this in the wake of my parents getting car-jacked yesterday. The criminals were, according to my Dad, between the ages of 15 and 18. They made a dash for my parent's Taurus as it was running in the driveway when my Dad went back into the house to see why my Mom was dawdling. My Dad looked to get control of the car from the teen driving it who, in an attempt to get away fast, gunned it down the drive-way hitting my Mom and shattering her legs. My Mom had surgery last night while my Dad did not sleep because his guilty imagination would not allow him to forget my mother tumbling and broken.

My parents are victims of a crime but my Dad's first response was to question his judgment in protecting his car rather than my Mom. His willingness to pose questions of himself in the midst of a tragic circumstance will sustain him but, his level of accountability seems lacking within Detroit's parents who too easily blame. The failure of Detroit's students is first their own; followed by the parents of these students and then by extension the teachers, administrators, and city, state, and federal officials but, when accountability begins with blame, an infinite regress from reality is practiced for the sake of fantasies that are neither true nor sustainable.

My siblings are pressuring my Dad to move from Detroit and he is struggling to fight them off. He wants to stay in his home. He doesn't want to give up.

I don't know what's best for him or my Mom. I don't live in Detroit so those closer to the situation have better information. I won't pretend to trade my 41 years for my Dad's 70+ and assume wisdom I have yet to earn but, I do fear for him and my Mom. I fear they will be victims again. I fear my Mom's long rehab on surgically repaired legs. My fears for my folks however are far fewer than those for the children of my hometown.

My Mom will heal and the pride that led her to confront hostile teenagers will sustain her recovery. My Dad's inventory of his failings will provide deeper wisdom and caution. But, what lessons will those teenagers learn? Will they be considered the criminals they are by their community and their parents? Or will they continue to dwindle in an apocalyptic half-light where parents' aversion to accountability ensures that persecution complexes lead to victimizing pain.

I'm not the praying type but I ask for your prayers. Please keep my Mom and my Dad in your thoughts. May their sense of responsibility keep them looking forward and struggling to find accountability in the midst of tragedy. Pray too for those boys who are now felons charged with larceny and attempted murder. May they not imagine righteousness in their actions but only dread for the pain and the hurt they've invited.

I don't like Buddy Jesus

Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And the land that I live in
Has God on its side.

(B. Dylan "With God On Our Side")

A friend recently confided in me that he thought my writing here is bullying and hypocritical. He suggested that my examination of faith is cruel. His theory is that deep down, no matter how mature we may be, we are all essentially children needing a Santa Claus to help buoy our hopes. He told me that my analysis of faith amounts to a mean-spirited "Humbug".

I concede that my ideas regarding belief are blunt but, I find the psychology of faith fascinating and often wonder what 14 years of Catholic education combined with 7 years of Evangelical Christianity have done to me. I like to slice open my mind and probe.

I'm not a delicate surgeon and have little bed-side manner.

This is all done because as I grow and view the world, I find I am changing my mind when it comes to belief.

I still believe in belief or, that our brains find solace in it and I think my friend is correct; we all desire to imagine a transcendent possibility beyond ourselves. And most would say this demands theology, doctrine, orthodoxy but, I don't.

I guess I am unorthodox because I don't know what I believe but admit I am awed by the love I feel for my wife as she sighs her way into consciousness every morning.

Is that God? I don't know.

I've heard the term "Agnostic Christian". Maybe that is me.

My theology was once intricate and arcane but now it is simple - to love and be loved. I no longer wish to defend exclusive claims to universal truth based upon shared cultural stories. I find that type of truth divisive. It seems stupid to me.

I admit now that the stories I claimed as truth are incoherent to me and the only reason I agreed to them was because it afforded me popularity, today I crave authenticity.

The stories of the faith I was given demand a level of self-hatred that I no longer consider sane or useful. The theological concepts of Original Sin and Atonement seem products of primitive minds living in a bloody and dangerous world. I don't know how the insistence that I am corrupt and depraved and worthy of an eternity of torture is an animating idea towards mature awareness. And I really don't want to accept that it is my fault that god sacrificed himself to himself so that I might be able to know Heaven and be released from the generational crime perpetrated by mindless innocents in a garden 6,000 years ago.

None of that makes sense and all of that is what the faithful have sought to convince me of with religion and theology.

I do believe the stories we share can help us deal with the mysteries of life but, this past year I've seen that the stories people tell can often times contradict the morality they claim. I've experienced arrogant and ugly attitudes and behaviors supported by exclusive and presupposed truth. I was afraid of it at first, then disgusted, now I am just tired.

That's not to say I don't enjoy the company of my believing friends and for the most part find them incredibly good people. I count many Evangelical Christians, Catholics, Observant Jews and at least one Buddhist as good and trusted people. They are part of my network of "go to" folks.

Unfortunately some of their doctrine is also upheld by another segment that embodies hate, and fear. These are old acquaintances who embrace a "Buddy Jesus"; a tough god with wrath in his hip-pocket; a thick muscled deity who assures them the hatred they harbor against the disobedient is a revelation into his Godhead. They are the ones who are certain that God is on their side. I fear these folks because I believe that, without our secular protections, they'd become drunk on their religious fervor and, like the Calvinists they are, would enjoy burning me, my liberal friends, and the loving homosexual couples I admire. To these people, Christ is not the Prince of Peace but is the Ultimate Fighter ready to kick the tail of those who defy inerrant Biblical theology. They anxiously await his re-arrival clothed in bloody robes at the end times slicing in half those that are disagreeable.

They are the "Prayer Warriors" who told me they were certain Barack Obama was a Muslim because in their scrupulosity God told them so.

They are the Christian Right who whooped it up with Rush Limbaugh's endorsement of Sarah Palin because she humbly upheld the sixth commandment and boldly violated the ninth.

They are the ones who lie for Jesus to ensure the supernatural trumps natural science with their endorsement of Creationism masked as Intelligent Design because it is essential to an open education that all sides are considered; all the while claiming ignorance of Howard Ahmanson, RJ Rushdooney and Dominionism.

And they are the ones who, for the sake of tradition, demand their First Amendment rights extend into every area of society including depriving homosexuals their 14th Amendment rights.

I'm stuck. I like my civilized friends who happen to hold storied faith beliefs but, I can no longer honestly identify with the darker members of their body who allow belief to justify unexamined righteousness.

Reinhold Niebuhr wrote in his essay, "The Christian Witness in a Secular Age" that the church,

" . . .must be embarrassed when it calls attention to itself as a proof of the powers of God. For the very pretension of virtue is yet another mark of the sin in the life of the redeemed,"

but I fear the believers in "Buddy Jesus" would discount the good theologian's admonition as evidence to his sinful Marxist politics and support of the UN. Professor Niebuhr, Dean of Union Theological Seminary and author of The Serenity Prayer, wouldn't be on the side of the righteous. "Buddy Jesus" would consider his pacifism disgusting when he claimed in his wise and paradoxical Christian Realism,

"religiously inspired good will, without an intelligent analysis of the factors in a moral situation and of the proper means to gain desirable ends, is unavailing."

I am looking to avail myself of desirable ends. I have come to doubt it will be found in religiously inspired good will and if that makes me a bully well, please just don't burn me at the stake.

To the brain, faith is fact

Sam Harris of the Reason Project has completed a study that shows people of faith take their "belief without evidence" as fact.

You can read commentary on the study here:

And the study details here:

This seems to offer a hypothesis that supernatural claims of knowing are not what they appear to be. To put it more bluntly, there is no such thing as a Holy Spirit. Victor Stenger in his new book The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason argues for the material manifestation of mind. Harris' study offers confirmation for material reality over supernatural claims and shows that faith as belief without evidence may feel like fact to the person comprehending it but, it does not mean that it is fact.

I find this science fascinating because it supports my understanding of faith and the availability heuristic.

It's amazing that people of faith will activate their brain in such a way to endorse as fact untestable claims. I understand now how people can fly planes into buildings or why James Dobson can shamelessly compare concensual homosexual relationships to some kind of mental illness.

To their brains their faith is a fact and they will do whatever is necessary to animate these facts into righteous action.

It doesn't make faith any more noble but it does explain the power of self-righteous delusions.

Heaven, Hell and the Behavior of God

As we enter Autumn here in Chicago and contemplate Winter, I thought a post about death and imagined suffering appropriate.

This past year for me has been one of existential grumbling. It started with our economic melt-down and gained momentum when I was asked by a friend if I've ever heard a faithful person use the concepts of Heaven and Hell as anything more than a carrot or a stick.

I've discovered that the contemplation of this type of blunt suffering is a specific branch of theology known as theodicy. Theodicy looks to justify the behavior of god.

David Hume in his Dialogues concerning Natural Religion says it this way, "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then evil?"

True believers rationalize all sorts of answers to defend their faith and justify their god or gods. There are many and they range from the concept of free will to the concept of impotence. None of these theories however provide me a workable answer to my friend's question regarding the use of Heaven and Hell. A person's imagined concept of each, based on my experience, has been nothing more than either a carrot or a stick to get people to behave in the face of fearful unknowns.

I recently have entered dialogue with a true believer regarding the concepts of god and afterlife who said that, "looking at it without the lens of Christianity- simply by looking at the vast expanse of the universe and realizing our very small and tiny place in it---you must admit that we are not in control."

I agree with him and in observation see this recognition as why we invent concepts like Heaven and Hell; to control our fear in the face of randomness.

Scientists that deal with randomness call this pre-supposition, the availabilty heuristic and it is a fallacy derived from our ability to conceive outcomes.

The theory of the availability heuristic states that simply, "if you can think of it, it must be important." For example, A person argues that cigarette smoking is not unhealthy because his grandfather smoked three packs of cigarettes a day and lived to be 100. The grandfather's health could simply be an unusual case that does not speak to the health of smokers in general

The availability heuristic provides good explanation for our attachment to Heaven, Hell and the Behavior of God. We manifest our personified understanding of a better self in an imaginary relationship with a character in a book (e.g. Jesus, Allah) and then we take actions against fellow humans to protect these imaginary relationships (e.g. The Inquisition, 9-11).

To be frank, I find most of theology to be unjustifiable rhetoric and all of it ignores the exclusivity of its own claims or, to be direct, the historical injustices done in the name of their exclusivity. At a certain point it seems like it has the same importance as discussing what color light saber cuts better, blue or red?

History shows that the enlightened thinker Denis Diderot was correct when he said, "Men will never be free until the last king is strangled in the entrails of the last priest."

There is nothing unfalsifiable or self-evident in the claims theologies make and they rely on a non sequiter.

Major Premise: The universe is a chaotic environment beyond the control of sentient beings

Minor Premise: Humans are sentient beings

Conclusion: God is in control of human beings

This is an argument from ignorance. Thinking people realize they can't control the randomness of the universe and therefore assign meaning to it by creating a more powerful personified "other" who can control it for them.

They place this imagined "other" in control to minimize the conscious understanding they have of their own death. This imaginary relationship then defines their sense of courage and morality which, by definition, delegitimizes all other relationships that don't share their imaginary one.

I can understand the psychological motivation to do such a thing and even accept it as a human need to order our consciousness but, reject the implication that this type of fear ennobles the imagined "other" we create.

The concepts of Heaven and Hell extend from this imaginary relationship. They only serve the one imagining the relationship because they serve to ennoble the imagined "other". This service often comes at the expense of intrinsic life (e.g. The Inquisition, 9-11).

Superstitious revelation becomes the weight-bearing mechanism to leverage the unknown. These superstitions contradict the virute they purport (e.g. "It takes courage to recognize that we need a God").

No, it takes courage to realize no one is coming to save us yet, our common welfare demands that we submit to the self-evident truth all people are valuable regardless of their race, creed, sex and sexual orientation.

They matter because they live and they will die. Their worth is not predicated on how they give god his/its glory.

Theology and religion deny the self-evident truth all people are created equal. They demand sanctioned attitudes, beliefs and behaviors to legitimize intrinsic life and, by doing so, create violent seperation between us.

They are products of our imagination to minimize our fear and therefore will be fearfully defended (e.g. The Inquisition, 9-11) when someone attributes them to be what they are, imaginary.

I've lived within the world-view faith purports and now, am living outside of it.

I feel a greater sense of morality knowing that my exercise of kindness, accountability, respect, and love extend from my humanity rather than some imagined divinity. For me, Heaven is simply a metaphor where I find the authentic freedom to live my life and let others live theirs.

Unfortunately, true believers take ritualistic actions where this metaphor's possibility becomes obscured due to the haggling over its meaning.

Reevaluating Perfectionism = (Accepting Agitation + Embracing Mistakes)/Self-Delight

Yesterday my wife and I were discussing her discontent.

Jackie, my wife, is an accomplished jazz dancer and fledgling choreographer. The last two years have seen her take risks in her craft. She's developed her choreographic voice while completing her MFA.

Last month she finished her thesis and resigned from the professional company she has been a member of for 8 years.

She's between gigs awaiting a teaching opportunity at Northeastern Illinois University.

All this seems to be a catalyst for what appears a healthy dose of existential angst.

She is unsure if she deserves to consider herself an artist when her days now seem filled with grocery lists, novel reading and her Pilades practice.

She, like most creative people, is a perfectionist who weighs her appreciation for her chosen craft against vague ambitions and current circumstances. This usually creates a perception where the creative person comes up on the losing end. Living life is a mundane practice that suffers against the imaginings of aesthetic invention.

As we spoke I suggested that her desire to perceive her current experience with some form of duality discredits the appreciation she might have in recognizing that no matter what she does there is no chance anybody will create a "Jackie Brenner" piece because she is the only Jackie Brenner there is. Creativity is an act of selfish self-will that does not need the approval of others to be.

We've had a lot of these discussions because both of us are choosing to practice our crafts. Self-consciousness and the perfectionistic need for approval stop the urge that drives creativity. We keep encouraging each other to keep going.

Perfectionistic attitudes can be reevaluated and be seen for the silliness they are.

Dudley Randall, in his poem, "A Poet is not a Jukebox" writes that a writer, " . . . writes what agitates his heart and sets his pen in motion . . ."

From the age of 20 (when my first play was produced) and over the next 10 years I dreamed self-expressive dreams equivalent to Randall's pledge but, always ran headlong into a self-defeating level of perfectionism triggered by public criticism and competition. I wanted so badly to be seen as good I contradicted the truth of Randall's poem.

Dudley Randall was the poet laureate of Detroit and he was a hero of mine but in a popular sense never really climbed to the imaginary pinnacle I placed him. He always trailed and continues to trail a list of more well known Detroit popular "poets" like Smokey Robinson, Eminem, "Dutch" Leonard and Jack White.

I mistakenly made my private appreciation of Randall somehow evidence of his fame failing to acknowledge he spent much of his professional life scribbling beautiful poems dedicated to simplicity and realism while working at the Wayne County Federated Library System as head of the reference-inter-loan department.

I gave up on play-writing in 1999 for various reasons, of which, the two primary ones were a failed marriage and a failed commission. I had poisoned good relationships with my inability to reconcile how writing not only offered me the experience of respecting my unique life and perspective but demanded I do so with no greater expectation than Randall's day-job. I had promised my wife at the time (now ex-wife) a part written for her (not my promise to make) so she would find me adorable and smart (something that was increasingly rare in our relationship) and promised the theatre whose commission I accepted an entertaining play that combined humor and truth (yet delivered a ghost story centered on suicide and the victimization of a society by a government determined to develop weaponry that could perfect germ warfare).

I honestly tried to be adorable, smart, humorous and truthful with the focus on creating something that would serve the expectations of my ex-wife and commissioned employer.

I failed miserably because I was too focused on being adorable, smart, humorous and truthful with a focus on creating something that would serve the expectations of my ex-wife and commissioned employer.

I instead could have just been myself.

I failed to recognize that promises towards perfect outcomes relative to other's expectations is a contradiction to the power art provides. I was hoping to be the single in the juke-box with the well-worn button that people pushed to shake their booty against a popular rhythm. I tried really hard to be a crooning well-loved Temptation and succeeded in being a reviled and misunderstood Stooge.

I share this in the wake of empathizing with Jackie's angst and finishing my first full-length play in 11 years. I did it as an act of completing the commission I lost in 1999 and my process was about what was true to me. I hope people get it but, don't know if they will. I tried to write a play that was about what is agitating me and something I'd like to see.

My journey back to writing plays started with this blog and this blog started because I needed a place to put down my honest thoughts. It was necessary to climb out of a people pleasing hole I started digging with my failed commission. Fearing I was stupid I attempted fitting in for the last 10 years and just succeeded in deepening a rut gouged by mediocrity. I left play-writing for a career in advertising as a brand planner. For those outside the advertising business, a brand planner is a corporate social scientist who tries to honestly contradict client mandates for the sake of consumer relevance. In reality, too often, he or she needs to be a spin doctor satisfying client mandates for the sake of the agency's profitability. Or, as one planning friend shared with me, "Man I want so badly to believe I work in the Bauhaus but feel like an order taker at a Fast-Signs franchise."

The ad game is a shuck and jive childish pretense where the perfection it pretends to offer is real. A place where nobody ever admits they don't know. But, embracing mistakes is the only way I've been able to understand my ideas. I am not perfect. I never will be and I realized as I wrote the latest play that making art provides a relaxation not found in pretentious perfections.

To be creative is to be sloppy, a tinkerer and live within the premise, "Progress, not perfection." It is all progress. My life as a writer is a way I can bring value to all of my life and allows me to embrace mistakes as evidence of something uniquely me. Getting lost inside the puzzle of the latest play felt like an encouragement. It was a science of the mind that allowed me to observe my confusion and determine its meaning.

Or as Dudley Randall writes:

"A poet is not a jukebox.

A poet is not a juekbox.

I repeat, a poet is not a jukebox for someone to shove a quarter in his ear

and get the tune they want to hear.

. . . a poet is not a jukebox.

So don't tell me what to write."

Jackie and I then went and checked out a puppet show about gay marriage where both death and the devil were murdered by a homosexual Punch. Good stuff.